Oh the joys of post-BRIT Awards - the smiles, the Twitter rants and the advertisements.
It seems that Zane Lowe has recorded voice overs for every single nominee. BRIT
Awards + 2: Ben Howard advertisements are all over YouTube, and we're just
supposed to assume Lowe knew Howard was going to win two awards. Let’s get this
straight; the BRIT Awards are a popularity contest. We know it's for artists
that are ruled over by major record label executives. If you think it awards
musical talent, listen to me, it doesn't. As our Dutch writer says: "Music
shouldn't be a competition," and Chris is right. What gives artists the
right to brag about awards? The only award they have the right to is a
lucrative Music Review Database written award... Yeah.
Look at Emeli Sande, posing for the cameras. Her PR assistant has directed
her in front of the cameras, and photojournalists have asked Sande to hold up
her awards, go on Sande, give us a cheeky smile. This is a genuine smile;
Sande must be proud for winning two Dalmatians, out of the 101 that
will kill off the BRIT Awards all together. After putting up through endless
Sande performances in 2012, it only makes sense that the people of the United
Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland pick her to be the recipient of
two awards. The award titles you ask? That doesn't matter. Just to rub it in,
Sande (who is on EMI, Capitol and fucking Virgin) won British album of the year
with the mediocre Our Version of Events. She won British female solo
artist first, and Sande's speech opened with: "Well I don't really know
what to say" / "Thank you to even be considered for this award,"
LIES, ALL LIES. Sande proceeds to deliver a well-rehearsed acceptance speech...
Even after performing at the Olympic Games, we're expected to believe you wouldn’t
be considered for that BRIT Award? Come on Sande... Have some self-respect and
tell everyone how you've had a fantastic year and announce your pre-contract to
perform at Lizzy's funeral.
After Adele was cut short at last year’s BRITs, it was to no shock that
James Corden would have to poke fun at the incident. Unlucky for him, the only
poking going on outside of his mind is the general public who used twitter to direct
defamatory comments and hate towards Corden. Defamation is defamation, and
it's unacceptable, but Corden being Corden, kind of deserves his haters; how
he's become the face of British TV is beyond me. Anyway, so Adele didn't show
up as she was in LA "rehearsing for the Oscars." I'm not a singer,
but I’m pretty sure she's rehearsed enough in her career to not even bother
picking up an award in London herself; she's paid enough after all. She made a
little statement at the end of her speech in reference to last year’s cut short
speech. And of course Corden has to make a joke about it, well I wouldn’t call
it a joke, he just spend a couple of hours embarrassing himself. Corden, when
nobody's laughing, it means you're not funny.
That brings us to Jake Bugg... “Oh, I’m pretty sure they have a good laugh.
But it’s easy to, isn’t it? When you don’t have to write any songs. People
[call them the new Beatles] because they broke America, but that don’t mean a
thing. I mean, [One Direction] must know that they’re terrible. They must know…
Calling them the new rock stars is a ridiculous statement. And people should
stop making it.” I want to focus on one sentence: "When you don’t have to
write any songs." Its funny isn't it, how Bugg can make this statement...
When half of his songs are co-written... One Direction hit back at Bugg
by saying: “Hi Jake Bugg, do you think slagging off boy bands makes you more
indie?” I have a problem with One Direction calling themself a band, but we'll
leave that for another day. Hypocrisy, everywhere... And I love it.
At the end of the night, One Direction won the One Direction award. Or as
it's actually called, the Simon Cowell award. They were awarded for global success,
a.k.a album sales. This replaced the lifetime achievement award. My respect
for the BRIT Awards has reached an all-time low with this one. Though it's not
the awards that bother me, it's the god damn award receivers. Lana Del Ray
thanked her 'team' for making her life "a work of art". I'm not
entirely sure what the fuck she's on about, but her life certainly isn't art...
If you call being followed by paparazzi and releasing terrible deluxe editions
then yeah, art. It's about as artistic as Damien Hirst.
The highlight of the night for me was when Mumford & Sons won an award
for being the best British group. Lead hypocrite Marcus says in his acceptance
speech: "We're in a group with One Direction." His attempt to mock
One Direction worked, for the millions of Mumford & Sons fans that think
the basic singer-songwriters are indie. Of course, they're not indie and they
come from the same manufactured world as One Direction, if not more
manufactured considering their even bigger scale of success in USA. How can
Mumford & Sons mock One Direction...? They're in the same group as them;
they even said it themselves... Who the fuck do they think they are?
At the end of the day, 2012 was a respectable year for British alternative
music. The mainstream was crap, and so was the BRIT Awards, but that was
expected. Corden made a joke out of himself, Mumford & Sons took their hypocrisy
to a level unknown before, and Jake Bugg took the piss out of One Direction for
doing as much as he did. The award recipients were very bland, boring,
average... And very British - rightful recipients of the BRIT Awards.
~Eddie
